Accidental trauma that breaks the protective outer layer of the skin is common in everyday life. Any break in the skin, regardless of cause, gives bodily access to foreign pathogens, providing a fertile breeding ground and a potential site for serious infection. Preventing infection is critical to the successful healing of any wound, since infection not only lengthens healing time and treatment costs, but also may cause serious, and sometimes life-threatening, complications.
This problem is exacerbated when the injury is a result of a traumatic contact with a hard, dirty surface, such as a roadway. The abrasive contact typical of these types of injuries, such as a result of a motorcycle accident, typically embeds pieces of grit, dirt, and other foreign debris into the abraded surface of the skin making it even more difficult to properly clean the injured area. This foreign debris, which of itself creates a substantial risk of infection, may be left in the wound after the skin has healed. This type of traumatic injury, without proper debriding of the wound, may result in a condition called traumatic tattooing. In traumatic tattooing, a pigmented foreign particle is impregnated within the dermal layer of the skin, which during the healing process, takes on the pigment from the foreign particle. Further, the skin may take on a mottled appearance due to the presence of the foreign particle below the outer layer of the skin. Once this occurs, the condition is difficult to correct without causing additional scarring in the area.
Time is an important factor in treating an abrasive or other penetrating skin injury. Skin wounds need to be thoroughly cleaned and debrided as soon as possible to reduce the risk of infection and scarring and to promote healing. A break in the skin that is four hours old before it is treated is significantly more likely to become infected than one that is treated within a half hour of injury occurrence. The longer the time period between skin breakage and treatment, the greater the possibility of infection and long-term scaring. Proper care of a wound includes cleaning and debris removal, ideally, shortly after occurrence of the wound.
Yet, first responders to an incident wherein there is injury typically are busied with responding to the ABC's of injuries, which includes checking that a victim has an airway, is breathing, and has circulation. After confirmation of the ABC's, the first responder may attempt to control bleeding at the injured area. Procedures such as localized pressure and application of a dressing may aid in reducing bleeding at the site but does little to debride a wound or reduce a risk of infection. Victims that are subsequently transported to a medical facility for treatment are typically triaged and are required to wait long periods if the injuries are deemed to not be life threatening. Accordingly, even in a case wherein the victim is seen a short time after a skin injury, the injury typically is not treated till long after the time of occurrence.
Even long after, when the injury is typically cared for, there are no real suitable compact solutions for dealing with the injury. Many types of medical appliances exist that aid in treating tissue injuries, yet do not really aid in debriding the injury. For example, applicators like sponges, cotton swabs or pads may be soaked in an iodine-based solution, such as a providone-iodine solution, to act as an antibacterial agent to facilitate cleaning of injured tissue. Germicidal preparations such as Betadine™, Hibiclens™ and Klenz Gel Blu™ are widely available for cleaning of tissue injuries either with an applicator or in a dispensing container. The applicators are typically sealed in a sterile packaging that is dispensed as a single-use item, which is disposed of after the single-use. The applicator is opened just prior to use and may be utilized to spread the antibacterial agent over the intended site. The applicator may be attached to a handle to facilitate manipulation of the applicator on the injury site. While this system of applying the antibacterial agent over the injury site works well enough to clean the site, the applicator does little to assist in a removal of foreign debris from the site.
It is an object of the present system to overcome disadvantages and/or make improvements in the prior art.